26.2 for two?

When life gets you down, what do you do? Do you go for a run or a nice bike ride? Or do you just sit on a couch and think about what might have been? I am pretty sure that I have done all of those except for the whole running thing and Taylor Swift seems to make my blues go away. So the day has come and gone, the Salt Lake Marathon happened and I was a spectator to one of the greatest things that I have ever seen. I had never seen so many runners/walkers in my life but there was really only one person that I was really interested in seeing, Devin Duncan. With every runner that passed, I thought to myself could I beat them? How much are they hurting right now? Are they enjoying their marathon experience? Watching others run gave me more motivation and fuel so that when I get back running that I will do it right so that I will be with them the next time around.  I feel like I am just blabbering on now but there is a point to reading this.

This whole past week my mind was going crazy and I was thinking about the marathon, running, and what I should I do. As some of my mission companions know, I tend to receive some pretty good inspiration in the shower but this week it was just full of crazy thoughts like I should just show up and run the marathon. I am sure that my mind was not registering the fact that it was 26.2 miles and I had not run that much in the past month.  I wanted to run so bad, every time that I heard the word marathon, my stomach just dropped. Waking up Saturday morning and going to watch the marathon was one of the hardest things that I have done lately, I just didn't want to see something that I could not participate in. Worst part was that I got a message from Dev in the morning telling me that he had been throwing up but he was going to finish no matter what, what a STUD! As I drove down, I felt some peace that everything would be alright and I needed to just be happy for all the runners. When I am at a race, I am not one of those guys that is shouting the whole time and cheering for everyone. I am the silent guy who just sits there and watches people, I can tell when people are hurting and when they are faking to make it. Seeing some people at the end of marathon was pretty awesome, some people just looked drained but they were so determined to finish. I also saw a crap load of people walking the half marathon, not a fan but that is a different story for a different day.  After about an hour, I saw a youngster running with a white Brooks jersey and I knew that it was Dev. That was about the first time that I had said anything and I am sure that my voice squeaked, I am pretty sure that some people laughed. He looked tired but who wouldn't be, he was killing it when he had thrown up early that morning.  He told me to get to the finish, and I jokingly told him to catch a big group of ladies running in front of him. He just smiled and kept running! As I was walking to the finish, I realized that my first marathon is going to be hard, something that I can not imagine right now. Dev was super tired and just laid on the grass, I don't blame him but I look up to him a lot from that 3 hours and 55 minutes that he endured a lot of pain and suffering.

These past few days I have had the chance to think about running and how much joy, pain, and frustration it brings me. I want running to be fun, and I am just dreaming about running some trails and just doing what makes me happy. Seeing one of your best friends achieve one of you life long goals seemed hard at first but it was one of the most rewarding things in my life. Knowing that I got to run with him a few times just makes me happy, I helped him just a little bit. The best is yet to come, 26.2 will get owned sooner or later. So it was not 26.2 for two this past weekend but it will be soon...

Suffering is inevitable...

I was reading this article the other day about how the Kenyans were gearing up to have the best 8 days of Marathons which included the Rotterdam, Boston, and London marathon. There has been a bit of disappointment because the front runners have not ran well, I am sure that the Kenyan Olympic committee is shaking in their boots right now. But this weekend was suppose to be my greatest day of marathoning, because it was going to be my first. I don't put much thought into the first time that I did some thing like kiss a girl, score a goal, first A in school, and other small things but this was different. Maybe because I was doing it with one of my best friends or maybe it was the fact that I looked forward to doing it for a year or so.  The reason that I have not written about this earlier is because I had a lot of emotions and I just wanted it to be perfect.
I do not like going to the doctor but going I had to give in and finally realize that I could not fix my knee by myself, I was only making it worse. I am pretty sure the doctor knew exactly what was wrong with me the moment I told him the things that had been going on. When he came back, after telling me that my right leg was super weak, he explained that I had a problem with my IT band and that me running a marathon was not a smart idea. In that moment, I felt like something was ripped out of me, I just didn't feel the same after I left his office. I was angry at someone or something and I was not about to think I was the reason for this.  The next few days were probably hard for the people around me, I was not a happy camper to say the least. I just didn't feel like anyone knew how I was feeling and it just sucked, plain and simple. After a few days, I looked in the mirror and just realized that I was the one that had over trained and tried to push myself way too hard so that I could be ready for the marathon. I did everything that I knew was wrong, I was upping my mileage at a crazy pace and just not really thinking about what I was doing. Once I realized that I was the one to blame, it made it a bit easier to deal with that I was not going to accomplish my goal. I miss running a lot, it is really always on my mind. Since the injury and my little time away from running, I can be driving and see a long dirt road. I fall into a day dream about running that and just how it would feel, I may seem crazy but when I have those, I just realize how big running is in my life.
May 14th cannot come fast enough but I am starting to understand that I needed this break from running, I needed to know exactly how much I miss it. I have also made some promises to myself that I am going to make running fun and not something that I have to labor at all of the time. I want to go on a run and not worry about how far I am running or how much time I have run. I want it to be a peaceful experience. This Saturday will be a great day, it will be a day that I get to witness a great friend accomplish something amazing. Hurting my knee was not the end of my running life, it was only the beginning...